As I mentioned the other day when I wrote about why nobody bought your eBook, it’s highly possible that you want to give up after the failure of your product launch. You invested your time and money into launching a premium product so that you can increase your passive income. You were planning on creating a new source of passive income. Instead you got nothing. What should you do in case this passive income stream doesn’t turn out well for you?

What should you do when nobody buys your eBook?

Get off the internet.

You need to get some fresh air. You need to go for a jog or workout. Whatever you do, you need to disconnect from the web and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Checking your stats (what I did) won’t help at all. You’re only going to get more frustrated every single time that you’re reminded that you sold no copies of your product.

You should get into the real world and do something positive. You have to put things into perspective so that you don’t feel like a complete failure.

Look at the lessons learned.

Sone people say that experience is what you say you received when you didn’t reach your desired outcome. I firmly believe that you can learn from every experience in life. You can always take away some key lessons from any good or bad situation in life.

There are arguably more lessons to be learned from a failure that a success. I learn this in one of my business case study classes. When a company is profitable and doing things properly, there’s not much to be learned. When someone has failed at some, there’s a lot to be learned.

Some of the lessons that I learned were:

1. I need to find a different market.
2. I need a different product offering.
3. I need to improve my sales copy.

What will you learn?

Turn your content into articles.

As you can imagine I was pretty upset to have no additional passive income and to be stuck with all of this content that nobody read. Then it hit me that I need to do something with the thousands of words in my eBook. I turned all of the content in my eBook into articles and guest posts. This led to a few week’s worth of blog material.

Instead of letting that PDF file sit on your desktop you can turn it into weeks of blog content. What are you waiting for?

Keep on going.

Are you going to give up just because you failed at something? You don’t need to give up just because nobody bought your eBook. I showed the world the middle finger and kept on going. There are many sources of passive income out there. Selling eBooks is just one of them.

That’s what I did when my eBook launch flopped. There’s no need to feel sorry for yourself. I once heard that you shouldn’t let success get to your head just like you shouldn’t let failure get to your heart. You didn’t lose anything. Life goes on.

One of the questions I’m often asked, as well as many other bloggers is how to make a career out of it. It’s hard to think that someone can really make money without leaving their home, or even in their pajamas. But it’s very possible and can be very lucrative. Being a blogger can be your primary source of income or it can be a secondary source. I wouldn’t call it completely passive, but eventually you won’t have to put as much work into it in the long run. So how do you begin making money as a blogger?

• Have a self-hosted blog: People take your blog a lot more seriously when you have your own domain name. A site that is something.wordpress.com or ablog.blogspot.com isn’t going to cut it. Not to mention when you set up a free blog, at least on WordPress.com, you’re not allowed to host advertising, which will be a nice chunk of your revenue for your blog. I have a bias towards WordPress.org, which is free, and buying a domain name is relatively inexpensive. You can get yourpersonalblog.com for $10. You have to invest money in order to earn money.
• Provide compelling content: Your blog isn’t going to earn you money if you have boring content, copied content, or no content at all. You’re going to need a unique spin on topics, interesting information, and something to keep readers coming back. You may have heard that content is king, and it’s true! You’re going to need to invest time in writing for your blog. I suggest writing at least 3 times a week, posts of at least 400 words. Keep this momentum up for at least 6 months. It’s going to be difficult, but blogging isn’t as easy as everyone things.
• Gain some authority: You’re not just writing for your readers, but in the beginning, you’re also writing for search engines and ranking systems. Since advertising can be a huge chunk of a blogger’s revenue, this is important. Advertisers want to know where you rank amongst other sites on the web. Things like your PageRank (calculated by Google), your mozRank (from SEO Moz), and possibly your rankings for certain keywords are going to come into play. If you’re not aware of what the heck SEO is or how to do it, SEO Moz has a great beginner’s guide you can read up on.
• Weigh your options: There’s many different ways you can earn money as a blogger. As we mentioned, advertising is one of them, but there’s multiple types of advertising. You can do display ads like the AdSense units you may have seen before. You can sell text links and banner ads to private companies. You can write posts advocating companies, or have them write the post for you. There’s also affiliate marketing (selling products and services on your site through a special link and getting a commission), selling products (like eBooks, courses, apps, etc.), freelance writing, and speaking at events. Since there’s so many options, you should consider which you would be best at, try them out, and identify which is proving profitable.

Bloggers who make money are more than just a person behind a computer screen. They’re marketable, whether the individual or the blog itself. However, everything should be taken in stride, and should be handled one step at a time. Start with these steps and continue until you reach your goals!

Last week we talked about how to publish an eBook, a method of passive income. Now that you know what it takes to create an eBook, now you need to figure out how to publish it. If you’re choosing the digital version exclusively and not a paperback or hardcover book, you’d probably do best publishing the book yourself. It’s the most cost efficient way to get your work out to the public, earning you more money for sales as well. Keep these websites in mind for your self publishing needs:

Lulu.com is an all-inclusive resource for aspiring authors. It gives you the ability to not only publish eBooks but also physical books as well. You can produce your book with different binding options, edit your novel, create a stunning cover, publish, and market your story. For your eBook, all you have to do is upload your file, create a cover, describe your book, pick a price, and promote it. It’s that simple! You also have the option of getting an ISBN to track the sales of your books. As for revenues, Lulu lemon boasts that the author keeps 80% of their profits, and they have an awesome deal that you can keep 90% of the profits through January 31, 2012. You can publish your eBook for iBookstore and Barnes & Noble’s Nook platforms.

Smashwords.com gives you a great do it yourself option for publishing your eBook for the masses, making it available for some of the hottest eReaders out, including Kobo, Nook, Sony eReader and Apple products. You can either earn 65% of your revenue from the major eBook storefronts or earn 85% if you sell your book on the Smashwords platform. Doted as the world’s largest eBook distributor, making your eBook is free on Smashwords, and gives you lots of support including a style guide and unlimited updates.

Kindle Direct Publishing is Amazon’s answer to self publishing for their Kindle platform. Most likely the world’s largest eBook storefront, offering an array of titles to be read on the Kindle device or on free Kindle software for your computer or smartphone. With their 70% royalty program and the ability to publish in multiple languages and price in multiple currencies, Amazon has a great and free service for authors. If you already are selling a hard copy of your book, you can link your Kindle version to it. Readers also have the chance of “borrowing” your book through Amazon Kindle’s lending program, where they can rent your book for 14 days.

PubIt! is for those looking to publish for the Barnes & Noble Nook. Publishing with the world’s #1 bookseller is not a bad idea at all, and it’s just as easy as some of the other options. You upload your content, you format it, you price it, you sell it. The Nook is quickly becoming an awesome eReader competitor, offering a color version and a great price.

You can also choose to offer your eBook as a PDF, which is a supported format for many eReaders. This would be a much more do it yourself way, as you would format the book on your own in your word processer, include your cover, you’d have to purchase your own ISBN if you want one, consolidate everything in Adobe Acrobat, and do all of the marketing yourself, having people come to your website or push for affiliates to help you sell your book.

Have you written your book yet? Where would you like to see your eBook offered as far as eBook storefronts?

So many people have heard great things about earning income online, but just don’t know where to begin. You’ve signed up for the newsletters and did the e-courses and you’re still either clueless or lazy. I’m not going to say they’re going to make you rich, because in some cases they won’t. However, any additional income is better than no additional income, especially if you have a savings goal or a goal to pay off your debt. So if you’re looking for a few extra bucks, here are 5 methods of online income you should’ve started yesterday:

1. Freelance services: We covered the reasons why I freelance already, and if you read it and you’re not doing it yet, I’m convinced that you’re being lazy. There are way too many benefits, one of them being the additional income. Even if you have a day job, you can offer freelance services on the side. You can freelance write like I do, lend a hand in social media management, be a virtual assistant, answer e-mails for someone else, etc. Make sure you fill out a 1099 if you’re making more than $600 from your freelance gigs.
2. Run ads on your blog: It’s a taboo subject but one that happens regardless of what people say. How do you think most of these bloggers are making income off their readers? If there’s a product or service you recommend, find out if they have an affiliate program and run their ad. People who click or sign up can get you additional income. There’s also one of the most passive ad systems around: Google AdSense.
3. Tweet your heart out: Sandy over at Yes, I Am Cheap wrote a blog post about how she’s getting paid upwards of $20 per tweet, and we were all so fascinated! If you’re a Twitter nerd and have some major Klout, this can be a nice way to earn passive income. You don’t have to be on Twitter all day either. Find a program to schedule your tweets like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or CoTweet.
4. Sell your stuff: You’re probably familiar with websites like eBay and Amazon for buying things for great prices, so why aren’t you selling your stuff there? Just when you think no one else wants those dreaded gifts you got from your aunt for Christmas, you find that you have a small fortune in your room collecting dust. Get rid of those Pokemon cards you have nice and neat in laminated sheets in your 3 inch binder. Purge your books you bought throughout your years in school. Put that money in your emergency fund.
5. Make an app: We are so obsessed with apps that there are several app stores with millions of applications in them. Whether for a smartphone or for the computer, people are constantly looking for entertaining and useful applications. If you have some technical background, you can create an app, submit it to the app store, and make some money that way. Come up with a cool calculator. Make the next Angry Birds. Maybe you have an idea that no one has thought of before. Even if you only charge $1 for your app, you can still make good money.

So now what’s your excuse? Maybe before you didn’t know what you could do but here’s 5 ideas right in front of you. Stop complaining that you need more money when you now have 5 opportunities to do so. What are you going to freelance? Know about sponsored tweets? Done some cleaning and have things to sell?

One of the ways to become an online entrepreneur is to set up your own online store. An online store has many benefits over a physical store front, including 24 hours of operation, automated customer service, easy to showcase your products, and simple to maintain. Whether you’re creating your own products or acting as a reseller, an online store front can be a great way to generate passive income now. It’s relatively easy to set up your online store:

1. Decide what you want to sell: You should choose your products before setting up shop, just like with a brick and mortar store. What will your inventory consist of? Will you be making these products or selling from another manufacturer? It’s your store so it’s your decision. Choose your target demographic wisely and carry products that they are interested in.
2. Decide on prices: Do some market research. What are these items going for elsewhere? How much is your competitor selling the products for? Will you be able to make a profit? Deciding on your prices before setting up your online store is crucial, as you may find it’s going to cost you more than you’ll earn.
3. Buy a domain, find hosting and choose a web software: First, you’ll need a website. The website should be the same name as your store. Look and see if the website name is available and purchase it. You can buy domains from several websites, but the most popular is GoDaddy. You can’t have a website if you have no place to host it. There’s plenty of hosting companies to choose from. I host all of my websites with JustHost which is affordable and the customer service is awesome. I’ve been with them for over a year and have experienced no problems with them. Then, you’ll find a web software to set up your store. There are also many softwares to choose, but one you can’t go wrong with is WordPress.
4. Choose a design: If you’re not a web designer, obviously this will be the most difficult part. You can either hire a web designer to make a completely custom online store, or choose a professional looking template and customize it. You can find very nice WordPress e-commerce templates around the web. Don’t forget to have a custom logo designed; branding is everything.
5. Take great pictures: A picture is truly worth a thousand words, and a product that photographs well sells well. You can do this yourself by finding a blank background, take the photos with your digital camera under decent lighting, and uploading the photos to your site. Or, you can find a photographer to take the pictures for you. These pictures will showcase your products on your online store.
6. Prepare the back end: You’ll want your online store to be smooth and functional. Make sure your shopping cart/bag works, test the checkout experience, and set up some automated e-mails to notify you when someone makes a sale, when their items have been shipped, and a thank you e-mail. Make sure all these things are up and running before your site goes live.
7. Market and advertise: Notify top bloggers in your store’s niche that your online store is live. Set up social media profiles and do marketing and advertising everywhere. Your store can be wonderful but if no one knows about it, you won’t get any sales.

There’s a bit more that goes into an online store, but this is the gist of it. It’s easier to set up than you think!

Virtually Instant Ways To Grow Your Business

I want passive income now! That’s what I was thinking when I launched this blog. Now in March of 2011 I understand that this is a daunting task that will take much longer than expected. As I work on my online business model, I continue to do lots of research and I continue hustling hard to make my dream a reality. Today I wanted to go over 4 virtually instant ways you can get hardcore with your new business!

As a quick note, I think I’m about to set a world record. I believe it’s going to take me a year to read Escape From Cubicle Nation. I read a few pages at a time, take extensive notes, and process the thoughts for a while. I was just reading the part about going all the way with your business when it hit me that I need to put the book down and get some damn work done.

Gary Vaynerchuk (social media king) shared the following advice a few years ago in regards to going all the way with your new business:

Stop doing what you hate!

Work your face off!

Stop watching f’ing episodes of Lost!

Legacy is more important than currency.

Wow. This guy might sound like a complete maniac at first, but he’s one of the brightest minds on the internet. These are 4 bonafied and virtually instant ways for how you can get hardcore with your side business.

Let’s break down these 4 strategies:

1. Stop doing what you hate!

There’s nothing more hardcore than cutting out all of the crap from your life. I believe he’s referring to the fact that more of us need to quit working jobs that we loathe and that we need to focus our energy on what drives us. This point is much easier said than done. I’m sure that we would all love to stop doing what we hate. It’s just that the fear of failure prevents us from branching off and trying something new.

I truly believe that we all need to stop doing things that we hate. The only problem is real simple: how do you take care of the financial side of things?

2. Work your face off!

Nobody wants to hear this. Working hard is the reality if you want grow your business. With the rise of books like The 4-Hour Workweek and the movement towards outsourcing, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of passively earning lots of money while beautiful girls serve you drinks on the beach. The harsh truth is that you need to hustle hard, regardless of the time or what ever else is going on in your life.

3. Stop watching f’ing episodes of Lost!

This basically means that you need to stop wasting your damn time on crap. There’s 168 hours in a week, how do you use them? I personally waste more time than I care to admit. As much as I’ve improved with my time management I still have a long way to go.

This point also strikes a deep emotional chord with me because I hate it when someone tells me that they don’t have any time. How could you not have any time at all? Did you watch tv this week? Did you update your status on Facebook 5 times? We all have time (even a few hours) to get shit done. There’s no excuse for not being able to hit the gym or to work on a side business.

4. Legacy is more important than currency.

It’s really easy to neglect legacy. I mean who thinks about what others will be saying about us ten or twenty years down the line? Probably nobody. Instead of getting caught up in dealing with advertisers about petty issues, it seems much more beneficial to pour yourself into kick-ass projects that will make a difference.

I plan on going hardcore with helping you guys out. How are you planning to go all the way with your business? Are you ready to get hardcore?

(photo credit: bisgovuk)

When I took the Earn1k course offered by Ramit Sethi last year I really didn’t know what to expect. I did know that I wanted to increase the amount of money I earned online. I knew that I wanted to have options when I graduated from college. I just didn’t know if the cost of the course would be worth it for me personally at the time. I also wasn’t sure how much value I would gain from a digital course where all of the material is posted online.

One year later I can say that I decided to pay for the course and it was worth every dollar. I learned a lot about freelancing, making money online, the psychology behind making money, and how to up sell. Today I wanted to share with you guys the most valuable piece of advice that I picked up on earning money online (and in general).

What’s the only tip that you’ll ever need for making money online? Find paying clients first.

As simple as this sounds, you need to find people that are willing to pay for your freelance services first. I do some freelance writing myself and I don’t have a business card or any fancy blog showcasing my work. I just put all of my effort into my writing and hope that you guys enjoy it.

If you want to freelance online or find any work online, the first step is to search and find paying clients. This means that you need to find others that are willing to pay for your work.

Why do you need to find paying clients first? This will prove to you that there’s a market out there for your offering. It will also indicate that there’s clients out there that understand they have a problem and are willing to pay for a resolution.

What do you need to avoid before trying to make money online? You need to stop creating barriers for yourself. This means you need to stop using common excuses that slow down your journey to making money on your own:

I need a cool-looking design on my website.

I need to find someone to create business cards for me.

I need to register my business first.

These excuses are pathetic. Trust me. I used to create similar excuses all of the time. Then I realized that Ramit’s advice made perfect sense. Find paying clients first. Then grow your business. It really is that simple.

I just want to end off today’s post by urging you to get out there and find paying clients. This means that you need to stop worrying about your Facebook landing page or Twitter background. Just find people willing to pay for your services.

Location Independent Lifestyle

Do you want to be location independent? Do you want to travel the world while growing your business? Do you not want any physical location? I’m not sure yet myself. There’s a whole army of location independent folks out there. I don’t know much about them but I’m slowly learning more.

I just finished reading Vagabonding and The Art of Non-Conformity this week. This is why I wanted to take a look at the whole idea of living a location independent lifestyle to grow your business…

The Pros of Being Location Independent:

Less overhead costs.

A traditional business will have to deal with significant overhead costs. From your office space all the way to your monthly internet bill. A typical business will come with a variety of monthly overhead costs that will eat into your profits. From reading more about the location independent lifestyle I’ve come to realize that all most of these people really need is an internet connection. These are usually readily available at most cafes and coffee shops around the world. I remember being on the internet when I was in Poland in some small little lounge in the middle of nowhere. This significant reduction in overhead costs really makes it easier for your business to become profitable.

You can sell your crap.

By living without a real location you can sell all of your crap to begin your adventures. This means that you can get rid of that clutter in your home, sell that car that’s costing you a fortune, and get rid of anything that you essentially don’t need.

Creativity.

I imagine that you get insane bursts of creativity when you’re traveling while working. I’ve been on a few trips since I started blogging (Europe, Cuba, Dominican Republic) and I can say that each time I went away new and different ideas would hit me. Maybe it’s because you’re expanding your horizons by meeting new people and learning about a different culture. Perhaps it’s just in your head.

The Cons of the Location Independent Lifestyle:

It can be expensive.

If not planned properly I can see a lot of money being blown on the traveling aspect. I can personally see myself blowing a ton of money on food and drinks. I would also get easily frustrated with poor living conditions. I work too hard to sleep on a floor in a hostel.

Can get lonely.

I don’t know about you but I love to be around people. I imagine losing my mind a few times while pursuing this solitary endeavor. Not sure what I would do stuck in a foreign country by myself.

It’s not for everyone.

I can’t imagine that this lifestyle is for everyone. Some of us simply love our structure. We enjoy our work and our everyday routines. I’m not sure where this whole “anti-job” mantra came from. I enjoy going to work and being around my co-workers.

Lose focus on your business.

I’m worried about the work aspect of being location independent. Sure it’s simple enough to find an internet connection, but how many hours will you actually spend on work? Between the random people you meet and the million things you want to do, I can easily see myself losing focus on the business end of things.

Where do you stand on the idea of being location independent?

(photo credit: heydee)

Why You Should Freelance First

Most people that are new to making money online want to get into productizing. That is selling their own unique products to their readers. This is an excellent strategy for monetizing a blog. It’s just not the best way to start off. At least from what I’ve discovered through my own personal experiences and from others.

As a new blogger you might not have the extensive reader base needed to move enough eBooks to sustain a full-time living. You also may have delusions of making fortunes off some eBook that will instantly sell thousands of copies. My solution to your online money making woes is to start freelancing first. Why do I think you should start freelancing right now? Below are my reasons…

Immediate income.

Starting a blog and productizing can be a very long and exhaustive process. Through freelancing (writing, design work, back-end work) you can start to earn money right off the bat. This is an immediate source of income coming your way. You won’t have to wait until months down the line. You can start earning money right away. This is money that you can later invest into your online ventures.

Save up money.

Your freelancing income will allow you to save up more money. You can start a separate savings account for when you decide to be an entrepreneur or you can beef up your emergency fund. The first little while where you start freelancing you’ll be able to save up money as opposed to spending money (as is the case in almost every new business).

Quick win.

The quick win of making money from freelancing can be enough to motivate you to pursue bigger and better things. It’s really easy to get discouraged and give up when your new blog hasn’t made the Adsense payout in the first 6 months. Through freelance work you give yourself a quick win and a psychological boost to keep on going.

Proof of possibilities.

Whenever someone tries to earn an income through an unconventional method (blogging, selling products) they will encounter many nay-sayers. You can get rid of most of these voices. However, you’re going to be accountable to those close to you. Your freelance income will show your spouse, parents, or friends that you’re getting into a venture that you’re serious about. Many possibilities will come your way and you’ll be shocked by what your new potential will become.

These are just my reasons for why I think you should start freelancing first. I’m sure that once you get started you’ll be able to think of your own.

(photo credit: bebopdesigner)

We all know that you can earn money online through blogging and writing articles for bloggers. Is there another way to generate revenue through writing articles? You bet. For those of you that love writing, but simply have no time to start a blog, there’s a solution for you– revenue sharing websites. These are simply websites that allow you write content for them, and then in return they share a piece of the advertising revenue with you.

Some of the benefits of revenue sharing websites?

1. Established system.

Most of these sites have an established structure in place. Your job is to simply write the articles. The website is established throughout the search engines, the domain is setup, and the theme is in place. Everything is pretty much ready to go for you.

2. No behind the scenes blog work.

You won’t have to deal with all of the behind the scenes work that us bloggers perform on a daily basis. There is no reader correspondence, SEO work, marketing, promotion, etc. You simply focus on what you do best.

3. Focus on writing.

Once all of the distractions (emailing, networking, social media, etc.) have been removed, you can focus on writing quality articles that will hopefully gain traction. The best part is that you can write as many articles as you want on as many topics as you would like to write about.

A couple of examples of revenue sharing websites?

Article Income
Bukisa

Where does this form of passive income stand?

This is arguably one of the most difficult forms of passive income to jump into at this point. You have to invest PLENTY of time upfront to pump out lots of articles. There’s also no guarantee that you will earn any money at all from all of the articles that you’ve written.

The payment structure on some of the sites is also not very lucrative for the articles that are not highly ranked. A few years ago, I heard of many writers that were earning decent residual income because of how high some of their articles ranked. Now, it’s much more difficult to break through.

I would also recommend revenue sharing websites for those of you that love to write and help people. If you want to make money online then this is probably the last option that you should consider.